Photos

Follow-up: W

To anyone feeling disappointed that I didn’t take this opportunity to mock the president, I apologize. If something unique had happened, and I could have made fun of him in a way that was truly funny, maybe I would have done so. But the jokes suggested by these photos are getting pretty tired after five years of W. (OK, I wrote some goofy captions, but nothing insulting, and they’re all factual.)

Besides that, there’s the issue of professionalism. I was a guest at a private event on private property and was acting as a supposedly objective representative of my university’s newspaper. My access depended on my photo editor, the managing editor, the White House media people and whichever security outfit does the background checks. These are all people I’d like to keep on my good side. Any sort of stupidity on my part just wouldn’t be classy.

This isn’t a political blog, but I’ve criticized both Governor Schwarzenegger and President Bush here before, and it seems likely that I’ll do so again. After all, they both talk funny, they each appear to represent a primate species closely related to our own and they’re dramatically unpopular (approval ratings below 40 percent!). But Friday’s post just wasn’t the time or the place.

Love him or hate him, Bush is one of the most iconic people alive. I got to photograph him for an hour, and I think that’s pretty cool. Like a peeing-Calvin sticker on a Mercedes, any attempt at humor would have cheapened the whole thing.